28 them in a heap on the floor of his studio as if they were old shoes. His studio was made by combining two bedrooms and cutting extra windows out of one wall of the cottage. It is a litter of cigarette ends, paints, and water-color sketches which he has thrown in chests and closets and underneath the furniture. On the walls he tacks scraps of paper bearing scribbled reminders to himself, telephone num- bers, quotatIons of verse, and solitary, evocative words, like "Revelation" or "Rightness." He is convinced that a word can help him recall a transient mood or sensation. When a visitor to the studio approaches his pictures too reverently, Marin is likely to pick one up and say, "What's important about it? Maybe the artist who painted the man who walks a mile for a Camel is more important." He is more than moderately ahsent- minded. In addition to forgetting most of his appointments, he is likely not to remember where he put his paints and brushes. Once he even forgot to take his easel along on a sketching trip. Mrs. Marin considers it one of her duties to remind him, gently, of the things he has forgotten. Often, before he goes out, he lets her inspect his clothes and pat his collar down. His wife, his friends, and, above all, Stieglitz have tended to as- sume a protective attitude toward him. Whereas everyone worries about him, he worries about little except whether he will have a bright day for painting. In 1 914, Marin had his first pros- perous season at Stieglitz's gallery. Stieglitz turned about $2,000 over to him, saying he hoped it would see him through a couple of years. In those days Marin and his wife used to rent a fisherman's cottage for the summer somewhere on the Maine coast for as little as five dollars a month. Their other expenses were not high, because they practically lived on fish. That summer he went up to Maine in June and did not return to New York until October. Then he told Stieglitz, not without em- barrassmen t, that his money was just about gone. Under prodding, he con- fessed that he had spent half of it to buy an island off the coast, in Casco Bay. It was a desolate place, completely rock and sand. He had always wanted to live on an island, so when he heard that this one was for sale at $1,000, he had tossed a coin to decide whether or not to buy it -heads he would, tails he wouldn't- and heads had turned up. He named his prize Marin Island. Stieglitz didn't care what he had named it. It was wartime, business looked bad, and Marin was an DO, DO, DO WHA T YOU DONE., DONe, DONE. BE.FOR.E. BE.FOR.E. BE.FOR.E. There is a man whose name must be, I think, Mr. Oglethrip, and if you wil] bring me his head on a silver charger, I will award you the hand of my daughter and a lien on my future salary. And nobody has ever seen him, but when you go to an amateur performance of any kind he is always sitting in the upper left-hand corner of the gallery, And he has the hands of a blacksmith and a heart full of enthusiasm, And compared to the rest of the audience, well, Mr.. Oglethrip is not as chusiasm, Because seasoned amateur-performance attenders generally weigh their applause carefully, so as not to be either a spendthrift or a hoarder, Because unless the performers of any number are your grandmother or yòur favorite cousin or something, your aim is to applaud just enough to not hurt their feelings and not enough to induce them to duplicate the order. And some girl who once handed you a cup of cocoa at a church supper appears and renders an imitation of Fanny Brice imitating Gertrude Lawrence, And your applause preserves the delicate balance between ecstasy and abhorrence, And she is just about to resign the stage to the next performer and everything is as right as a couple of trivets When hark! What is that thunder in the upper left-hand corner of the gallery? Can Mr. Oglethrip be driving rivets? No, but he is clapping his horny hands with the effect of a gargantuan ruler inserted into a gargantuan electric fan, and before you can say Gadzooks, Why, the cocoa girl is hack with an imitation of Gertrude Lawrence imitating Baby Snooks. Mr. Oglethrip's cup has no brim; Mr. Oglethrip is he to whom what is too much for anybody else is never enough for him. If Mr. Oglethrip heard Will Hays sing "Trees," He would want a reprise. Do you know a picture program that Mr. Oglethrip would find simply peachy? A double bill in which each picture contained a dual rôle for Don Ameche. I think it would be nice If, when you cut off Mr. Oglethrip's head to bring to me on a silver charger, you would cut it off twice. -OGDEN NASH . expectant father. "Has the island any water on it?" Stieglitz asked. "No," said Marin, "but I didn't find that out until I had bought it." Stieglitz by now was in extreme pain. To soothe him, Marin drew his portfolio out from under his arm. He had put in a busy summer and had brought back the astounding num- ber of a hundred and twenty water colors. Three of the pictures, of Marin Island, were quickly sold to the late John Quinn, collector of modern art, for about the price of the island, so Marin figured that his venture in real estate had been quite shrewd He still owns the island and occasionally paints . it) but, owing to its aridity, he has never tried to live on it. Shortly after making this investment, Marin, who painted almost all of his water colors on a particularly fine Eng- lish handmade paper of a kind that was no longer being produced, heard of a pa- per dealer who had a stock of a thousand sheets he wanted to close out for $600. Marin thought it was the best paper in the world for water colors, but this time he consulted Stieglitz. "I'd buy it if it took my last dollar," said Stieglitz. So .Marin, estimating that the thousand sheets would keep him going indefinitely, spen t his last dollar. He still has a small supply. Less provident water-colorists claim that Marin's paper accounts for some of the brilliance of his pictures. M ARIN speaks of his childhood and youth as a blank, frustrated pe- riod. He matured slowly, and for the